Missing year digit on US, New Jersey—Death Index, 1916–1929 [MS6T-Q2H]

E Vollmer

While doing US, New Jersey—Death Index, 1916–1929[MS6T-Q2H] the year digit is missing. Do I copy the above digit (Iike the month) or mark it blank? Thanks

Áine Ní Donnghaile

The New Jersey indexes have the year digit printed on the first record from that month/year. The next record(s) within that month have nothing printed. The year digit is not missing, it's how the index is designed, to save keystrokes at the time it was built.

For example, on the image in batch MS6T-Q2H, the 1st 4 records all relate to different months. There is a 0 (for 1920) next to each. Records 5 and 6 are from the same month, May, as record 4. There is no 0 printed, but it is to be inferred.

John Empoliti

This is interesting. Here is my take on these by deciphering the clerk's shorthand. I've snipped the top part of the image. The date range is 1920-1924. The digit next to the name indicates which of those years applies — 0 stands for 1920, 1 for 1921, etc., and 4 for 1924. When there is a blank, the last-mentioned date applies (a form of ditto-ing) until another date is indicated, as in the first encircled records.

cynthianelson1

I ran across this one in reviewing that really does seem to be missing a digit.

I interpret this as 1916-1919 for this particular page, but the original indexer entered it as 1928. Project years are 1916-1929: https://www.familysearch.org/indexing/batch/36fd5033-1ff2-4ec3-8a84-7b7484db74ea

Any thoughts?

Áine Ní Donnghaile

The page header would rule. I've used this index for years, even before it was digitized. If the top says 1916-19, it is 1916-1919. The indexer has perhaps made a typo. It's not missing a digit. It is how the index was formulated. The 8 means, in this case, 18.

slotbuddy

Aine is correct. I remember working on this project and while I don't have a batch in front of me right now, there ARE instructions which indicates that is how it is to be interpreted.

Melissa S Himes

@slotbuddy Correct, there is a perfect example in the project instructions that shows how to index that number. Although I do like the example that @John Empoliti created which probably better shows indexers/reviewers how to proceed with the "inferred ditto". Although the example also uses the date from the line above to indicate that you continue to use June 1924.

Here is the example from the project instructions:

https://www.familysearch.org/indexing/images?fs-cache=true&key=idx-deepzoom-image&image=bfdd06fe-a3ed-4297-b20e-cf84854deb89